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ABBREVIATIONSADBAsian Development BankAFDAlliance Française de DéveloppementAfDBAfrican Development Bank GroupAUSAIDAustralian Agency for International DevelopmentBNPPBank Netherlands Partnership ProgramBRICsBrazil, Russia, India, and ChinaCCTconditional cash transferCSOcivil society organizationCODECommittee on Development Effectiveness, Board of Directors,World BankDFIDDepartment for International Development, United KingdomECEuropean CommissionECDearly childhood developmentEFA FTIEducation for All Fast Track InitiativeEMISeducation management information systemESS2020World Bank Education Sector Strategy 2020FASFoundation-Assisted Schools Program, PakistanGDPgross domestic productIADBInter-American Development BankICTinformation and communication technologyICRImplementation Completion Report, World BankIDAInternational Development AssociationIEGIndependent Evaluation Group, World BankIFCInternational Finance CorporationILOInternational Labour OrganizationKEFKorean Education FundKPIkey performance indicatorWorld Bank Group Education Strategy 2020 ix

MDGMillennium Development GoalLLECELatin American Laboratory for Assessment of the Quality ofEducationNZAIDNew Zealand AidODAoverseas development assistanceOECDOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and DevelopmentP4RProgram for Results (World Bank lending instrument)PADProject Appraisal Document, World BankPCDPartnership for Child DevelopmentPFEDPartnership for Education DevelopmentPIRLSProgress in International Reading Literacy StudyPISAProgramme for International Student AssessmentPPPpublic-private partnershipREADRussia Education Aid for DevelopmentSABERSystem Assessment and Benchmarking for Education Results,World BankSACMEQSouthern and Eastern Africa Consortium for Monitoring Educational QualityTIMSSTrends in International Mathematics and Science StudyUISUNESCO Institute of StatisticsUNDPUnited Nations Development ProgrammeUNESCOUnited Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural OrganizationUNICEFUnited Nations Children’s FundUSAIDUnited States Agency for International DevelopmentWDRWorld Development ReportAll dollar amounts are U.S. dollars unless otherwise indicated.x Learning for All: Investing in People’s Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development

EXECUTIVE SUMMARYEducation is fundamental to development and growth. Access to education,which is a basic human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of HumanRights and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is also astrategic development investment. The human mind makes possible all otherdevelopment achievements, from health advances and agricultural innovationto infrastructure construction and private sector growth. For developing countries to reap these benefits fully—both by learning from the stock of global ideasand through innovation—they need to unleash the potential of the humanmind. And there is no better tool for doing so than education.The Education Sector Strategy 2020 lays out the World Bank Group’s agendafor achieving “Learning for All” in the developing world over the next decade.The overarching goal is not just schooling, but learning. Getting millions morechildren into school has been a great achievement. The World Bank Group iscommitted to building on this progress and stepping up its support to helpall countries achieve Education for All (EFA) and the education MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs). The driver of development will, however,ultimately be what individuals learn, both in and out of school, from preschoolthrough the labor market. The Bank’s new 10-year strategy seeks to achieve thisbroader “Learning for All” objective by promoting country-level reforms ofeducation systems and building a global knowledge base powerful enough toguide those reforms.Why A New Strategy?The number of out-The Bank Group has made substantial contributions to educational development around the world over the past 49 years.Since launching a project to buildsecondary schools in Tunisia in 1962, the Bank has invested 69 billion globally ineducation via more than 1,500 projects. The Bank’s financial support for education has risen over the decade since the MDGs were established, surging to morethan 5 billion in 2010. Since 2001, when the International Finance Corporation(IFC) started to focus on the education sector, it has invested 500 million in 46private education projects.of-school children ofprimary school agefell from 106 millionin 1999 to 68 millionin 2008.World Bank Group Education Strategy 2020 1

This period has seen great educational advances, particularly in enrollingchildren in school and keeping them there, and in improving gender equality. Compared to a decade ago, far fewer children in developing countries arenow out of school, thanks to more effective education and development policiesand sustained national investments. The number of out-of-school children ofprimary school age fell from 106 million in 1999 to 68 million in 2008. Even inthe poorest countries, average enrollment rates at the primary level have surgedabove 80 percent and completion rates, above 60 percent. And between 1991and 2007, the ratio of girls to boys in primary and secondary education in thedeveloping world improved from 84 to 96 percent, with even larger gains in theMiddle East and North Africa and in South Asia. Governments, civil societyorganizations (CSOs), communities, and private enterprises have contributed tothis progress by building more schools and classrooms and recruiting teachersat unprecedented levels. The World Bank Group has supported these efforts—not only with financing and technical assistance, but also with ideas.Gains in access toeducation haveturned attentionto the challengeof improvingeducation qualityand acceleratinglearning.But that success has bred new challenges at a time when conditions in theworld have changed. With tens of millions of children still out of school andsubstantial gender gaps remaining, efforts to achieve the education MDGs mustcontinue. Gains in access have also turned attention to the challenge of improving the quality of education and accelerating learning. In addition, the globalenvironment for education is changing. One set of changes is demographic:lower fertility rates are shifting population profiles from the very young populations typical of many low-income countries to “youth bulges” more typicalof middle-income countries, increasingly concentrated in urban areas. At thesame time, the stunning rise of new middle-income countries has intensifiedthe desire of many nations to increase their competitiveness by building moreskilled and agile workforces. Another set of changes is technological: incredible advances in information and communications technology (ICT) and othertechnologies are changing job profiles and skills demanded by labor markets,while also offering possibilities for accelerated learning and improved management of education systems.These developments call for a new World Bank Group education strategy forthe next decade. To be sure, the Bank Group has not stood still since it adoptedits last strategy in 2000. It has moved closer to client countries by decentralizingits operations, with 40 percent of staff now in country offices. It has improvedits results measurement and orientation, and also invested in better evaluation2 Learning for All: Investing in People’s Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development

of program impacts, with the education sector helping to lead the way. It hasalso innovated financially through greater use of sectorwide financing, pooledfunding, performance-based instruments, and other approaches. And it recognized the growing role of the private sector in education by creating a healthand education department at IFC. This new education strategy aims to buildon these changes by setting out a new objective, together with strategic directions and instruments for implementing them. This education strategy supportsand implements key Bank Group priorities—targeting the poor and vulnerable, creating opportunities for growth, promoting global collective action, andstrengthening governance—laid out in its recent post-crisis directions strategy.Objective: Learning For All, Beyond SchoolingThe new strategy focuses on learning for a simple reason: growth, development, and poverty reduction depend on the knowledge and skills that peopleacquire, not the number of years that they sit in a classroom. At the individuallevel, while a diploma may open doors to employment, it is a worker’s skills thatdetermine his or her productivity and ability to adapt to new technologies andopportunities. Knowledge and skills also contribute to an individual’s ability tohave a healthy and educated family and engage in civic life. At the societal level,recent research shows that the level of skills in a workforce—as measured by performance on international student assessments such as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the Trends in International Mathematicsand Science Study (TIMSS)—predicts economic growth rates far better than doaverage schooling levels. For example, an increase of one standard deviation instudent reading and math scores (roughly equivalent to improving a country’sperformance ranking from the median to the top 15 percent) is associated with avery large increase of 2 percentage points in annual GDP per capita growth.Learning levels that have been measured in many developing countries arealarmingly low, especially among disadvantaged populations. Of course, evenin poor learning environments, most students acquire some skills from school.But too often these skills are rudimentary at best. In some countries, recentstudies show that a quarter to a half of youth who have graduated from primaryschool cannot read a single sentence. International student assessments alsoreveal wide knowledge gaps between most developing countries and membersof the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).World Bank Group Education Strategy 2020 3

Despite the impressive performance of Shanghai-China in the recently releasedPISA 2009 results, the scores of almost every other low- and middle-incomecountry or region were in the bottom half of results, with many lagging farbehind the OECD average.Learning needs to be encouraged early and continuously, both within andoutside of the formal schooling system. The emerging science of brain development shows that to develop properly, a child’s growing brain needs nurturing longbefore formal schooling starts at age 6 or 7. Investments in prenatal health andearly childhood development programs that include education and health are essential to realize this potential. In the primary years, quality teaching is critical forgiving students the foundational literacy and numeracy on which lifelong learningdepends. Adolescence is another fertile period for learning, but also a time whenmany students leave school to marry (especially in the case of girls) or to workfull-time. Second-chance and nonformal learning opportunities are thus essentialto ensure that all youth can acquire skills for the labor market.Learning for Allmeans ensuringthat all students,not just the mostprivileged, acquirethe knowledgeand skills theyneed to live happy,productive lives.The Learning for All strategy promotes the equity goals that underlie theeducation MDGs. In adopting the objective of learning for all, the new strategyelevates the education MDGs by linking them to the universally shared objective of accelerating learning. Major challenges of access remain for disadvantaged populations (especially girls and women) at the primary, secondary, andtertiary levels, with demand for the latter two levels of education having grownsharply as primary completion has increased. Without confronting these challenges, it will be impossible to achieve the objective of learning for all. Childrenand youth cannot develop the skills and values that they need without thefoundational education provided by schools. Indeed, the latest (2009) PISAresults reinforce the lesson that the countries that are most successful overall inpromoting learning are those with the narrowest gaps in learning achievementamong students.The bottom line of the Bank Group’s education strategy is: Invest early. Investsmartly. Invest for all. First, foundational skills acquired early in childhoodmake possible a lifetime of learning; hence the traditional view of education asstarting in primary school takes up the challenge too late. Second, getting valuefor the education dollar requires smart investments—that is, investments thathave proven to contribute to learning. Quality needs to be the focus of education investments, with learning gains as a key metric of quality. Third, learningfor all means ensuring that all students, not just the most privileged or gifted,4 Learning for All: Investing in People’s Knowledge and Skills to Promote Development

acquire the knowledge and skills that they need. This goal will require loweringthe barriers that keep girls, people with disabilities, and ethnolinguistic minorities from attaining as much education as other population groups.To achieve learning for all, the World Bank Group will channel its efforts ineducation in two strategic directions: reforming education systems at thecountry level and building a high-quality knowledge base for educationreforms at the global level.Recent researchshows that thelevel of skills in aworkforce predictseconomic growthrates far betterSystem Reform, Beyond Inputsthan do averageAt the country level, the Bank Group will focus on supporting reforms ofeducation systems. The term “education system” typically refers to the publicschools, universities, and training programs that provide education services. Inthis strategy, “education system” includes the full range of learning opportunities available in a country, whether they are provided or financed by the publicor private sector (including religious, nonprofit, and for-profit organizations).It includes formal and nonformal programs, plus the full range of beneficiaries of and stakeholders in these programs—teachers, trainers, administrators,employees, students and their families, and employers. It also includes therules, policies, and accountability mechanisms that bind an education systemtogether, as well as the resources and financing mechanisms that sustain it. Thismore inclusive concept of the education system allows the Bank Group and itspartner countries to seize opportunities and address barriers that lie outside thebounds of the system as it is traditionally defined.schooling levels.Improving education systems means moving beyond simply providing inputs. There is no question that providing adequate levels of schooling inputs—whether these are school buildings, trained teachers, or textbooks—is crucialto a nation’s educational progress. Indeed, the increase in inputs in recent yearshas made it possible to enroll millions more children in school; this effort mustcontinue wherever levels of inputs remain inadequate. But improving systemsalso requires ensuring that inputs are used more effectively to accelerate learning.While past strategies have recognized this goal, the new strategy gives it moreemphasis, setting it in a context of education system assessment and reform.The education system approach of the new strategy focuses on increasingaccountability and results as a complement to providing inputs. Strengthening education systems means aligning their governance, management of schoolsWorld Bank Group Education Strategy 2020 5

and teachers, financing rules, and incentive mechanisms with the goal of learning for all. This entails reforming relationships of accountability among thevarious actors and participants in an education system so that these relationships are clear, consistent with functions, measured, monitored, and supported.It also means establishing a clear feedback cycle between financing (includinginternational aid) and results. Because failures of governance and accountabilitytypically have their severest effects on schools serving disadvantaged groups,this system approach promotes educational equity as well as efficiency.Operationally, the Bank will increasingly focus its financial and technical aidon system reforms that promote learning outcomes. To achieve this, the Bankwill focus on helping partner countries build the national capacity to govern andmanage education systems, implement quality and equity standards, measuresystem performance against national education goals,

most privileged or the smartest—can not only go to school, but also acquire the knowledge and skills that they need to lead healthy, productive lives and secure meaningful employment. . of World Bank Group Country Directors and World Bank Group field staff in over 115 countries. We would like to acknowledge HD staff who coordinated